Christian Wolmar

If you live in London, a little bit of Soviet Russia will be coming down your way during next year’s Olympics. Not the oversized shotputters of dubious sexual provenance who used to clean up on the gold medals in the female events, or, at the other end of the scale, the dainty gymnasts whose bodies were also sacrificed in the pursuit of honouring Communism. No, what we will be getting are ...

After hearing of the terrible death of a second person at Bow within a few weeks on the cycle superhighway, I tweeted that the thinking behind the scheme needs revisiting. Iain Dale, the consummate Conservative blogger and LBC presenter tweeted back saying it was a 'knee jerk' reaction on my part, and sprang to the defence of Boris Johnson and his cycle schemes See: http://bit.ly/sU9Lgn I think Iain misses the point ...

The Department for Transport has been leaking suggestions that a high speed rail link between Heathrow and Gatwick would improve services at both airports. This smacks of desperation. The government has been hoist by its own petard, having scrapped plans for the third runway, supported by many of  its members, as a short term vote gaining measure. The idea may seem superfically attractive, but the problems seem insuperable. First, who would ...

Boris Johnson has announced plans to extend the cycle hire scheme westwards as well as eastwards, and confirmed that Barclays will continue supporting the scheme till 2018. I love the idea of what is essentially free cycle hire - for those with a credit card - in central London, but I remain unsure as to what the thinking behind it is. What, in other words, is the strategy behind the ...

Watching Bob Crow in action is an instant history lesson. His way of conducting industrial disputes has more in common with the Everybody Out style of Miriam Karlin in the 1960s sitcom The Rag Trade than with modern-day trade unionism. His latest efforts to stop London moving may, however, prove to be one strike call too many for Britain’s last diehard militant trade union leader. Crow is an unapologetic political ...

Big fares rises, especially on buses, are going to be announced on Thursday morning by Transport for London. Boris Johnson, the mayor, has chosen to impose the massive increases in order to retain services, rather than announcing a series of cutbacks. It is the right decision, though it must be galling for the Tory blond bombshell.  He probably realised that keeping the £600m subsidy for buses was important for the outer ...